I really enjoyed working with the gifted teachers at RSES this week! They are already off to a great start for the year and our workshop will just enhance that. We talked about rigor and how to develop questions for lessons in the classroom. After reviewing different models for questioning, we found that there is a common progression in the levels of thinking that we can develop with our students. The basic levels involve facts and recall, and then working to understand them. This is the foundation of thinking and questioning, necessary facts and skills needed to think at a higher level. Once the lower levels are mastered, our students can move on to higher order thinking, through appropriate questioning, like analysis, evaluation, and creation. All students should be exposed to every level of thinking and questioning, but their current ability level will dictate the support and repetition needed to help them work through it. Our workshop focused on developing complexity in questioning to help our students' thinking. Complexity involves how many steps (and skills and levels) are needed to answer the question. While all of this takes time and planning, the payoff will be amazing!